Germany and Russia have had a relationship over the centuries that has more often been businesslike than hostile. The business being conducted, however, and the deals that have been struck, have seldom much benefited the countries in between.

A new survey deals with literature and sexuality in Ireland from Joyce to McGahern, taking in the background of shrill clerical warnings of moral dangers and occasions of sin and a more humane and well-intentioned, if much mocked, strain of advice to the young and inexperienced.

We are, somewhat unsurprisingly, where we are. But how did we get there? And does our constitution have anything to do with it? It can be argued that the 1937 assemblage of principles has served us well. But who exactly has it served well? The property-owners or the people?